The Social Determinants of Risky Driving on the Intercity Roads of Tehran Province, Iran: A Case-Cohort Study

Abstract

Background Traffic accidents are the major cause of injuries that endanger the lives of many people annually. It seems that studying the factors and grounds of this type of event including risky driving contributes to the identification of groups at risk and development of preventive programs. Objectives Given the importance of this issue, we decided to conduct a study to examine the social factors of risky driving. Methods The present study was implemented based on a case-cohort design. The target community was all the drivers who drove on the intercity roads of Tehran Province. Each driver with and without a history of being guilty in a car accident leading to injury or death during the last 5 years was assigned to the case and control groups, respectively. The questionnaires were completed through a review of documents and interview within the groups. In the analytical analysis, a chi-square test and, if necessary, the odds ratio and confidence intervals were used to determine the relationship between the variables. In each case, the necessary investigation of confounding or interacting variables was performed using regression models and the final model of the factors affecting a risky driving was extracted. Results From a total of 990 drivers studied, 54 cases (5.5%) were females and 936 (94.5%) were males. The mean and SD of the drivers’ ages were 39.4 and 11.8 years, respectively. People with a driving job, chronic disease, poor socio-economic status, having only a family dispute, without a religious attitude, and under medical supervision (all with P < 0.001), secondary education (P = 0.01), women (P = 0.01), using drugs (P = 0.03) were found to have a greater history of road traffic injuries or deaths. Conclusions This study showed that gender, education level, occupation, socioeconomic status, medical care, health condition, lifestyle, family conflict, drug abuse history, and religious attitudes are the major social factors of risky driving on the intercity roads of Tehran Province.